Slow morning with breakfast of pancakes and bacon, hung around for a bit and then went shopping! We went to Sam’s, Kmart and another store which I can’t remember because I wrote this entry in hindsight. We had to return the X2 DVD because when we tried to watch the special features it turned out to be faulty. We also got more candy cane lights and another light-laden reindeer! After coming back from that, Kevin, Jen, Chris and I headed back to Tampa in Chris’ car. We hung out at Jen’s for a while and watched some Inuyasha (dubbed anime…sigh) which she’d recorded. We had Taco Bell for dinner (yummy!) and they messed up the order which meant waiting more, which apparently was the longest time any of them had ever spent in Taco Bell. After dinner Anastasia and I went back to her place in time that she could watch the football, but she ended up missing some of it anyway. Oops.

Today we decorated! Apparently it is traditional to do your Christmas decorating after Thanksgiving. So today was spent putting together lights, hanging decorations and for Chris, Kevin and I most of our time was spent on the roof hanging lights. This involved careful precision and insertion of clips under the shingles on the roof the stretching and connecting a lot of lights. Susan is big on lights, as everyone evidently knows. Light reindeer and candy cane pathway. Lights everywhere. I then sewed popcorn together on a string, which is about the oddest thing I’ve ever done. We had Pizza Hut for dinner (which is better than in NZ but still not exactly great pizza) and watched the X2 DVD. Chatted with Chris for a while, talked briefly with Anastasia on the phone. Cue sleep.

We went to Epcot and MGM Studios, although we didn’t do everything in both places by a long shot. Epcot first, we went all around the countries of the world, little pieces of culture from everywhere, very nifty indeed. We checked out the sword shop (saw my family crest and the multitudes of things I could get it on), we had lunch in Japan, went on the Mexican ride which was the slow boat thing, but pretty cool none the less. After that we went on Test Track, which is a pretty cool ride where you go through a bunch of tests for a car, as if you were crash test dummies. Lots of fun! After that Kev and I went on Mission: Space and man could you feel the G forces! It was a simulator for flying a mission to Mars and it was a cool ride. We then bussed to MGM Studios and after a long wait in line went on the Rockin’ Rollercoaster which is a tribute roller coaster to Aerosmith and AWESOME!! Yes, I loved my first roller coaster. We then had dinner at a place called the Commissary (I had fish ‘n’ chips), then we went on Star Tours, a slowish Star Wars ride. After coming out of that and jittering around through the Star Wars gift shop we went to the Great Movie Ride which was a cheesy ride with an attendant who was a little weird. The dinner was good, Star Wars was a bit of fun and the Great Movie Ride was a bit overdone. After that it was back home to sleep.

Thanksgiving Day!! Today I met “Uncle Roger” – Al’s brother, quite a nice guy. He drove up this morning and gets the room I slept in, so now I’m out in the lounge on a comfy couch with the other “kids”… oh darn, a comfy couch not an uncomfy air mattress. Apparently some of the adults got up and started cooking a little after I went to sleep, so there was lots of food. Turkey, sweet potato casserole, corn bread, salads, five or six kinds of vegetables, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing and three different kinds of pie for dessert! Everyone else proceeded to nap after the meal, citing something about turkey making you sleepy. Medically proven or something. I managed to check my email instead.

After most people had sort of emerged from the naps, we went off to the movies! Jen, Amanda and I went and saw Haunted Mansion while Kev, Al and Roger saw Matrix: Revolutions. The others stayed at home, Lisa not feeling very well. While we were there we also perused the shops. Cool guitars, lots of books, games and music, including a really cool-looking Hellsing magazine-thing with lots of character and episode information and even information about a Hellsing card game! Wohoo! For those of you who don’t know or care, Hellsing is a very cool anime about vampires in England. Anyway… I also saw the Hollywood Shop with lots of cool movie stuff, lots of which was signed… expensive, but not horribly so for what they were selling. Back to the house, we then stayed up to the small hours playing Taboo, which was a hilarious good time! Word of the evening goes to Jen with “Automobile” complete with wavy hand motions. ^^

Not leaving till later in the day, today I went with Jules to Ybor City, which is the older part of Tampa, still with all the brick roads (old bricks just laid down, not new ones in patterns like the Arts Centre if that’s what you’re thinking) and nice traditional buildings filled with new stuff, including tacky Christmas items. We had lunch at a restaurant (of sorts) called Fresh Mouth, where I had a traditional American cheeseburger! Ha! It tasted much as you’d expect – tasty but a little oilier than New Zealand. We then went to Gameworks, a big arcade which was lots of fun. We go in for an hour and get swipe cards that allow us to play on any machine in the place for the time we have, then we can ‘recharge’ the cards if we want to play more. Jules has masses of free time there, so it was a lot of fun! We played shooting, racing, bowling (that was weird) and of course, air hockey! Had heaps of fun thrashing Jules on the air hockey table, despite getting confused and having my coordination tested by multiple pucks on the table at the same time! After our gaming foray, we went on a brief shopping spree before heading back to Jen’s place. We (being Eric, Lisa, Kevin and I) had Kojaks for dinner, which is a barbeque place. I had barbeque pork sandwich and one of Eric’s ribs. Jen didn’t join us for dinner as she was at work, and I was informed that Jen would be sorely disappointed at missing out on it! After we finished dinner we picked up our stuff, grabbed Jen from work then headed out to Orlando. I met Al, Susan and Amanda, Jen’s uncle, aunt and cousin respectively. Very nice people and I’m sure I’ll enjoy my Thanksgiving stay in Orlando. Before flopping on an air mattress I managed to beat both Jen and Kev at Soul Calibur on Game Cube. Ha! I’m not even good at fighting games, as Richard can attest.